A first hand look at marathon training

I’m jumping in with both feet to do the Philadelphia Marathon this year. But I have a few obstacles to overcome, obstacles common to many budding runners.

My most basic obstacle is I don’t like to run. More accurately, I don’t like training runs. I like races. If I could show up at the marathon and crank out 26.2 without the big training runs beforehand I would be a happy man. Marathon runners and other endurance athletes call these volume runs. The more volume, read miles, you put in prior to the race the better prepared you’ll be. We’ll address this later.

My second obstacle is I don’t have the time to do a traditional marathon training program. There is no magic or secret to these programs. Every other issue of Runner’s World or Triathlete magazine contains 6-month, 4-month, beginner, etc. plans for completing a marathon. A general summary of these plans goes something like this. Run 3 or 4 times a week, the runs during the week start short and get longer as you get closer to the marathon, the run on the weekend starts long and gets longer as you get closer to the marathon, build up the weekend mileage to 22-24 miles a couple weeks before the event and taper your training for a week or two leading up to the big day.

A traditional training program could take 10-15 hours per week. That doesn’t work for me. And in my conversations with other people who have used traditional training plans in the past, it doesn’t work for them either.

I should add that I believe in maintaining total body fitness which includes not only endurance but strength, flexibility, agility, stamina, balance, coordination, power and mental toughness. Dedicating your fitness program exclusively to running tilts the balance towards endurance, stamina and mental toughness. Ask a marathon runner or distance triathlete to deadlift their body weight and you’ll see how that training impacts their strength.

So how am I going to overcome my dislike for long training runs, lack of training time and desire to maintain strength, power and agility while building my endurance?

I will be using a hybrid of my Interval Strength Training (IST) program and long distance run training. In part 2, I will lay out the plan in general terms and then continue to post updates as the November event gets closer.